In a place where news crews had been risking equipment and lives attempting to cover floods, Olewe's African skyCAM deployed drones to reduce the risk to reporters. Despite progress in the field, on January 15, the Kenyan government instituted a general ban on private drone use.

NTT’s recent entry into consumer robotics suggests that it’s not just about Google vs Amazon, or Softbank vs NTT anymore, but about telcos vs big data companies. With two major and distinct sectors now competing for market share in consumer robotics, will this impact the way the whole robotics industry evolves?

The release last week of the study on adverse events in robotic surgery led to much discussion on the safety and effectiveness of robotic surgical procedures. While the hope is that this dialogue will mean safer and more effective robotic procedures in the future, the intense focus on safety and effectiveness seems to be compromising training opportunities for new robotic surgeons, who require many hours of “live” surgical practice time to develop their skills.

The hype around the consumer drone industry is so thick that it clouds our judgement. It is as if our biggest boosters have forgotten what our technology stack really does, what it doesn’t do, and what it should do.

I’m in the Detroit area for the annual TRB/AUVSI Automated Vehicle Symposium. Those in Ann Arbor attended the opening of the new test track at the University of Michigan, but I was at a small event with a lot of good folks in downtown Detroit, sponsored by SAFE, which is looking to wean the USA off oil. Much was discussed, but a particularly interesting idea was just how close we are getting to something I had put further in the future: robocars that are cheaper than ordinary cars.

First it was robot vacuum cleaners; now it’s robot kitchen appliances. Robots are back in the popular imagination as household helpers, and industry seems to be taking a bet on leveraging that interest as a viable marketing strategy.

We know electric cars are getting better and likely to get popular even when driven by humans. Tesla, at its core, is a battery technology company as much as it’s a car company, and it is sometimes joked that the $85,000 Telsa with a $40,000 battery is like buying a battery with a car wrapped around it.

At Singularity U, we’re releasing a new video series answering questions about our future technology topics that come from Twitter. My segment is one of the first, and while regular readers of my blog will probably have seen me talk about most of these issues, here is the video …

Close up, in 3D, what jumps out at you is not just how astonishing today’s humanoid robots are, but also how miraculous the human body they mimic is. National Geographic’s Robots 3D is showing in big screen, IMAX and digital cinemas throughout the world this summer. It presents an authentic and fascinating glimpse into the work of replicating some of our most challenging human characteristics.

To discover the impact of robots on the average manufacturing worker, we analysed their effect in 14 industries across 17 developed countries from 1993 to 2007. We found that industrial robots increase labour productivity, total factor productivity and wages.

SoftBank announced that their little Pepper robot will be available for sale beginning August 1st at the rate of 1,000 per month after selling out their first 1,000 Peppers in one online minute in June. They also released a new promo video that evokes Pepper's emotional connection with people.

Our most recent video update comes from our VP of Engineering Andy Atkins. Take a sneak peak inside the minds of our engineers as they finish our newest Jibo P2s, to find out what kinds of challenges and hurdles we have overcome in the past year.